Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick
Publication Date: May 14, 2025
What is Covered in this Article:
- Oracle’s recent analyst summit showcased its fully integrated stack—compute, storage, infrastructure, applications, database, and industry‑specific solutions—enabling end‑to‑end data flow and embedded AI across front‑ and back‑office systems.
- Oracle highlighted its AI pricing strategy, under which core AI features are bundled into standard licenses at no extra cost (with custom AI on a usage‑based model), while Oracle continues expanding vertical‑specific offerings that leverage both on‑platform and external data for deeper analytics and decision support.
- Under Evan Goldberg’s vision, NetSuite also now has AI at its core—combining generative, agentic, and classic AI—to let users intuitively query ERP data, with built‑in guardrails, transparency, and audit controls.
- Both Oracle and NetSuite are pursuing an AI‑centric strategy on OCI, emphasizing vertical specificity, robust data management for reliable agentic workloads, and augmenting—not replacing—human workers to boost efficiency, productivity, and satisfaction.
The Event – Major Themes & Vendor Moves: The Oracle Applications + Industries Analyst Summit 2025 was packed with a variety of sessions covering both Oracle NetSuite (the mid-market focused ERP), and Oracle’s Fusion Cloud Applications, database, and industry-focused solutions.
From the Oracle Applications + Industries portion of the analyst event, Oracle highlighted the significant strides it is making across its application portfolio, with particular emphasis on industry-specific solutions, AI integration, and analytics capabilities. Oracle noted that its fully integrated approach (offering compute, storage, infrastructure, and applications) enables it to ensure data flows seamlessly from front office to back office systems, and ensure that AI can be embedded across its entire ecosystem seamlessly.
Furthermore, Oracle continued to emphasize that its AI features are included within its standard licensing agreements, with no additional charges for the base functionality. However, custom AI development or functionality will follow a usage-based pricing model.
Oracle is also continuing its focus of delivering vertical-specific offerings, to leverage the massive amount of process and workflow data it has and will also be working to incorporate data held outside of the platform to provide for greater analysis and decision-making capabilities, as well as more robust AI solutions.
Like other large SaaS players, Oracle is also focused heavily on delivering AI agents, offering agent orchestration tools through its platform, as well as custom AI development capabilities for customers and partners. Oracle also noted that its AI features use strict data privacy policies to govern model training and to prevent data leakage.
Meanwhile, several key themes from the NetSuite portion emerged, including:
NetSuite is being reimagined with AI at its core, and is embedding the technology to help users seamlessly interact with and query the data held within the ERP platform.
NetSuite chief Evan Goldberg emphasized that AI capabilities will be included at no extra charge for most standard use cases, comparing NetSuite without AI to “a car without wheels.” Goldberg also said that NetSuite is combining different AI technologies (generative, agentic, and classic AI) to solve various business problems rather than relying on a single approach.
NetSuite is implementing guardrails, transparency, control mechanisms, and audit capabilities to ensure AI is used responsibly and securely.
NetSuite also noted it would continue its focus on providing specific, industry-focused editions of its platform, with the stated aim of ensuring that businesses can utilize NetSuite to address their business needs without significant additional integration or customization work required.
Perhaps most importantly, Goldberg emphasized that “the best AI comes from the best data,” highlighting NetSuite’s advantage with its unified suite and 27 years of experience with more than 41,000 companies.
Oracle Applications + Industries Summit: Embedding AI and Driving ROI?
Analyst Take: Both Oracle and NetSuite are focused on delivering an AI-centric experience across their respective platforms. They are leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to deliver these AI benefits efficiently and at scale. Both companies’ focus on vertical-specific functions is smart and timely; AI is enabling a far more granular approach to business, and software platforms, applications, and tools are needed to support these very specific workflows, business rules, and regulations.
Both companies emphasized the importance of ensuring that customers’ data is properly managed and available, particularly as agentic AI becomes a common component of the enterprise technology stack. Unavailable, outdated, or unreliable data is essentially unusable and will hinder the effectiveness and ROI of any implemented agentic system.
The company is also taking the right steps with AI to not only support agentic workflows that drive automation, but also support human workers. While AI is poised to dramatically impact the nature of all types of work, humans will still play a vital role. It can and should be a key catalyst for improving worker efficiency, productivity, and worker satisfaction.
Oracle, and by extension NetSuite’s biggest advantage, remains its fully integrated structure, which provides them with infrastructure, compute, and a large platform of interconnected applications. While modern enterprises rarely deploy a single platform, due to security, investment, and internal political reasons, a solid and expansive platform upon which many functions can be run is increasingly attractive in an era defined by data-driven workflows and agentic AI.
What to Watch:
- Because most of the details that were revealed to analysts were provided under a non-disclosure agreement, expect to see more information to roll out officially over the coming weeks and months, especially around specific features, capabilities, and partnerships.
- Watch to see what Oracle does around agentic AI, particularly with respect to third-party agent interoperability and control, which are key market themes.
- Expect to see a continued focus on the creation and release of industry-specific capabilities, to take advantage of customers’ demand for more out-of-the-box functionality from their ERP system of choice.
You can read the full press release detailing Oracle’s AI capabilities on the company’s website.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
Other insights from Futurum:
Oracle Database@Azure: The Genesis of Oracle’s Multi-Cloud Leadership
Oracle Database Analyst Summit 2025: Oracle Raises its Database Game
Is Oracle’s AI Agent Studio the Missing Layer for Enterprise-Wide Automation?
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
